The Final Circle of Paradise

"I can see that for myself. Everyone is out for a good time, and he is here – sacked out. And reading to boot."

"He – is tired," I said.

"Oh, so? Well then, I can leave!"

"But I won't let you," I said, catching her by the scarf and pulling her down beside me. "Vousi, dear girl, are you a specialist only for ladies' good humor or in general? You wouldn't be able to put a lonely man whom nobody loves into a good humor?"

"What's to love?" She looked me over. "Red eyes and a potato for a nose."

"Like an alligator's."

"Like a dog's. Don't go putting your arm about me, I won't allow it. Why didn't you come over?"

"And why did you abandon me yesterday?"

"How do you like that -.abandoned him!"

"All alone in a strange town."

"I abandoned him! Why, I locked for you all over. I told everyone that you are a Tungus, and you got lost – that was a poor thing for you to do. No – I won't permit that! Where were you last night? Fishering, no doubt. And the same thing today, you won't tell any stories."

"Why shouldn't I tell?" I said. And I told her about the old Subway. I sensed at once that the truth would be inadequate, and so I spoke of men in metallic masks, of a terrible oath, of a wall wet with blood, of a sobbing skeleton, and I let her feel the bump behind my ear. She liked everything very well.

"Let's go right now," she said.

"Not for anything," I said and lay down.

"What kind of manners is that? Get up at once and we'd go.

Of course, no one will believe me. But you will show your bump, and everything will be just perfect."

"And then we'll go to the shivers?" I wanted to know.

"But yes! You know that turns out to he even good for your health."

"And we'll drink brandy?"

"Brandy and vermouth and a polecat and whiskey."

"Enough, enough… and no doubt we'll also squeeze into cars and drive at a hundred and fifty miles per hour?…

Listen, Vousi, why should you go there?"

She finally understood and smiled in discomfiture.

"And what's wrong with it? The Fishers also go."

"There is nothing bad," I said. "But what's good about it?"

"I don't know. Everybody does it. Sometimes it's a lot of fun… and the shivers. There everything – all your wishes come true."

"And that's it? That's all there is?"

"Well, not everything, of course. But whatever you think about, whatever you would like to happen, often happens.

Just like in a dream."

"Well then maybe it would be better to go to bed?"

"What's the matter with you?" she said sulkily. "In a real dream all kinds of things happen… as though you don't know!

But with the shivers, only what you like!"

"And what do you like?"

"We-e-ll! Lots of things."'

"Still… imagine I am a magician. And I say to you, have three wishes. Anything at all, whatever you wish. The most impossible. And I will make them come true. Well?"

She thought very hard so that even her shoulders sagged.

Then her face lit up.

"Let me never grow old," she said.

"Excellent," I said. "That's one."

"Let me…" she began inspiredly and stopped.

I used to enjoy tremendously asking my friends this very question and used to ask it at every available opportunity.

Several times I even assigned compositions to my youngsters on the theme of three wishes. And it was always most amusing that out of a thousand men and women, oldsters and children, only two or three dozen figured that it is possible to wish not only for themselves personally, or their immediate close ones, but also for the world at large, for mankind as a whole. No, this was not witness to the ineradicable human egotism; the wishes were not invariably strictly selfish, and the majority in subsequent discussions, when reminded of missed opportunities and the large problems of all mankind, did a double take and in honest anger reproached me that I hadn't explained at the beginning. But one way or another they all began their reply along the lines of "Let me…" This was a manifestation of some kind of ancient subconscious conviction that your own personal wishes cannot change anything in the wide world, and it makes no difference whether you do or do not have a magic wand.

"Let me…" began Vousi once more, and again was silent. I was watching her surreptitiously. She noticed this, and dissolving into a broad smile, said with a wave of her hand, "So that's your game. Some card you are!"

"No – no – no," I said. "You should always be prepared to answer this question. Because I knew a man once who always asked it of everyone, and then was inconsolable – 'Oh what an opportunity I missed, how could I not have figured it out?' So you see it's entirely in earnest. Your first wish is never to grow old. And then?"

"Let's see – what else? Of course, it would be nice to have a handsome fellow, whom they would all chase, but who would be with me only. Always."

"Wonderful," I said. "That's two. And what else?"

Her face showed that the game had already palled on her, and that any second she'd drop a bomb. And she did. All I could do was blink my eyes.

"Yes," I said, "of course that, too. But that happens even without any magic."